1. Identification & Account Data
--------------------------------
First name: Axel
Last name: Beckert
Key fingerprint: F067 EA27 26B9 C3FC 1486 202E C09E 1D89 9593 0EDE
Account: abe
Forward email: abe@deuxchevaux.org
ID check passed, key signed by 51 existing developers. I do not include the
output of keycheck.sh as it would be much longer than the rest of the mail.
For a list of the signatures you need to get a msd ranking of 129, have a
look at http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/mk_path.cgi?STAT=95930ede&STATS=statistics
2. Background
-------------
Applicant writes:
> Finally, please tell me about yourself,
Studied Computer Science with minor Biology at Saarland
University.
Currently working as system administrator at Department of
Physics at ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
Zurich), mainly responsible for web, mail, dhcp and some
infrastructure servers, but also helping out with file
servers, linux workstations and Linux thin clients.
> > how you came to GNU/Linux and free software,
All the computers in the students' pools at university ran
SunOS. I quickly started to like the far better commandline
compared to DOS. In the very beginning, Linux was for me just
a way to get those neat features also at home.
A student fellow gave a SuSE 4.4 CD box during my first
semester, that became my first personal Linux box which
survived my whole study time.
From my second semester until I left university, I was active
at the computer science students' council. They had quite a
mixture of unixoid boxes (SunOS, Nextstep, Sinix), but all
their Linux boxes were running Debian GNU/Linux at that time.
So after I made my first experiences with SuSE and YaST, I
tried Debian which my friends at the council already praised
as stable and easy to upgrade at that time. If I remember
correctly, I started with Debian 2.0, skipped 2.1 (can't
remember why), then worked quite a while with 2.2.
Potato was the version which started to draw my attention to
Debian. I remembered I got a set of Woody pre-release CDs for
my birthday, so my friends already knew I preferred Debian.
During the Woody time I also started contributing to Debian.
Things I clearly remember are the Linuxday.lu 2003 where I
installed Woody on my Hamilton Hamstation (a SparcStation 4
clone) with assistance of Andreas Tille and Sven Luther. Later
I carried this machine to a Sarge-Release BSP to test the
Sarge upgrade.
Can't tell when my interest in the political part of free
software started, but Debian surely played an not so
unimportant part in it. Since FrOSCon 2009, I'm also an FSFE
Fellow.
During my studies I also started to write my own software
which I published under GPL. One of these programs is wApua
which was the first software I packaged for Debian. With that
software I also learned what the GPL is about and what not
after noticing that someone used the code in one of his
products.
> > and why you want to volunteer your time.
Because I think, Debian is the best Linux (and FreeBSD :-)
distribution for me. And probably for many other people, too.
I would like to make it even better, fit into even more
niches, becoming even closer to the universal operating system
it aims to be
> > Please describe the contributions you have made to Debian,
Maintaining several packages, the most important ones are:
conkeror -- my most popular package. My packaging also
brought me upstream commit access.
amora-server -- adopted from upstream packager, also have upstream
commit access.
dphys-config -- software which is developed at my employer,
adopted from a coworker
blosxom -- co-maintainer and upstream release manager, helped
Rhonda bringing the Debian enhancements back into upstream.
Caring about ftp.ch.debian.org. This is part of my job, but
not only done during work times.
Helping aurel32 and tarzeau to run and maintain io.debian.net
and asdfasdf.debian.net, the first two Debian GNU/kFreeBSD
porter machines. Writing porter patches (last two I remember:
aiccu and i3status 1.x for kfreebsd-*). Running my own
kFreeBSD box, giving access to porters (screen, bash and ksh
have been fixed for kFreeBSD on that box by Hessophanes) and
presenting it at Debian booths as show-case like last weekend
at BLIT.
Organized several Debian booths at fairs and other events, at
least Linuxdays.lu 2003, BLIT 2009, helped organizing the
booths at ApacheCon 2005 and FOSDEM 2008. Staffed Debian
booths at many other events. Attended several bug-squashing
parties.
Helped organizing some local Debian birthday, release and
bug-squashing parties.
> > your primary areas of interest within Debian,
There are several main interests which partially overlap:
* Ports, mostly Debian GNU/kFreeBSD, but also Sparc, Alpha,
and ARM(EL).
* Debian on low-end / embedded machines including NSLU2,
* OpenMoko, Alix boards, MicroClient/eBox and netbooks like
the early EeePCs.
* Keyboard-focussed X applications (window managers, browsers,
etc.) and everything text-mode and commandline.
> > and any goals you wish to accomplish.
Helping Debian to keep the big choice of software it offers.
The big amount of software is one of the things I like a lot
with Debian, I know it's hard to maintain such a big amount of
software, so that's one point where I want to help.
Keeping good contact between package maintainers and upstream
authors, independent on which side I am.
Keeping good contact to downstream distributions (especially
Ubuntu and grml) for my packages, especially conkeror and
amora-server.
2a. Advocate writes
--------------------------------------------
From: Christoph Berg <myon@debian.org>
I know Axel since studying at the Saarland University. We were
both members of the student's council in the CS department. I
think it was him who teached me how to really configure fvwm.
He's been a close follower of the open source world in general
and Debian in specific much longer than I have been, being an
editor of symlink.ch.
I have been sponsoring uploads for him for some years now. The
packages were always in good shape, and discussing ideas for
improvements with Axel was always a source of inspiration for
both sides. He is well connected to other parts of Debian as
well, with co-maintenance of two packages, and having uploads
sponsored by several people.
On IRC, XTaran is an #debian.de regular helping users, and
often keen to dig into issues to find the root of the problem.
I wholeheartedly recommend Axel to become a Debian Developer.
3. Philosophy and Procedures
-----------------------------
Axel has a good understanding of Debian's philosophy and procedures
and answered all my questions about the social contract,
DFSG, BTS, etc. in a good way. He committed to uphold the SC and DFSG
in his Debian work and accepts the DMUP.
4. Tasks and Skills
-------------------
Axel has a good understanding of the technical side of Debian.
He is maintainer of several packages, for some of them he is also
the upstream developer.
All packages are in good shape.
He also answered my other questions regarding T&S without problems.
5. Recommendation
-----------------
I wholeheartedly recommend to accept Axel Beckert as a Debian Developer,
especially since Axel is doing a lot of good work for Debian for a lot of
years now (definitely longer than myself), even without being an official
Debian Developer. He is not only helpful on irc, but also spends a lot of his
'real life' time on travelling to conferences and meetings to run Debian
booths and/or hold talks about Debian or related themes.
--
Bernd Zeimetz Debian GNU/Linux Developer
http://bzed.de http://www.debian.org
GPG Fingerprints: 06C8 C9A2 EAAD E37E 5B2C BE93 067A AD04 C93B FF79
ECA1 E3F2 8E11 2432 D485 DD95 EB36 171A 6FF9 435F
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